


Nothing More Than a Ghost Within a Ghost

by Kandakicksass



Category: Bandom, Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, M/M, Time Travel, happy/hopeful ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-04
Updated: 2016-04-04
Packaged: 2018-05-31 03:51:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6454306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kandakicksass/pseuds/Kandakicksass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ryan Ross is nineteen years old when he disappears from Panic!'s tour bus. Brendon Urie is twenty nine years old when a nineteen year old Ryan Ross appears in his living room.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothing More Than a Ghost Within a Ghost

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rainbowsandgucci](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainbowsandgucci/gifts).



> Sarah and Brendon either dated and broke up, or never got together, just for a little context. Otherwise it's mostly stuck to canon.

For an eighteen year old Brendon Urie, the entire incident took less than two minutes. It was big, he knew rationally, to watch someone disappear completely and reappear a minute and thirty-three seconds later, but at the time he’d mostly just blinked a lot and tried to calm his pounding heart, because _what_?

Then Ryan was back on their tour bus next to him, looking shaken and relieved and upset and a million other things, and he had an armful of trembling boy to comfort. He pushed the incident itself out of his mind and just worried about Ryan.

***

Ryan Ross is twenty nine years old. He hasn’t been great, lately, but it’s been okay. He’s healthier, recently shaved, and working on a new album. The past year and a half has been the closest thing to _okay_ he’s been since 2011, and the funny thing is, he would have forgotten completely if Dan hadn’t been lounging on his couch and asked him what the day was.

“It’s May third,” he answers over his shoulder from where he’s rifling through his film collection.

He stops, and turns around to face Dan with wide eyes. “It’s May third,” he repeats. May third, 2016. “ _Fuck_.”

***

Ryan Ross is nineteen years old. One minute, he’s on the bus with Brendon, making half-hearted attempts not to stare at the sliver of skin Brendon’s t-shirt has exposed, and the next he’s standing in the middle of an unfamiliar living room, furnished in various shades of black, brown, and purple.

He spins in place, which would look comical if there was anyone around to see it, but he appears to be alone in the room, if not in the apartment. Ryan is nothing if not practical, though – or so he tells himself, though a voice that sounds suspiciously like Spencer’s huffs in his head and comments on his ridiculous wardrobe and unnecessary foreign films that even Ryan doesn’t really get but watches to pretend he does.

Still, practicality – he takes a step, clears his throat, and calls out, “Hello? Anybody home?” It takes the sheer force of his will that he doesn’t add, “I seem to have miraculously teleported into your house, could you help me get back home?”

“What?” a voice asks from a room down the hallway. “What the fuck?” It gets closer, and suddenly there’s a figure emerging from a room on the left, dressed except for the shirt in his hand.

Ryan’s heart is stuck in his throat, because that’s _Brendon_. Brendon he was just with, he thinks wildly, except this Brendon has a little bit of stubble and hair that’s shorter on the sides instead of in the front and really impressive muscle definition, and –

There’s nothing left of the dorky boy Ryan is so fucked up over, except familiarity of the face and in the way he moves, a little. The man in front of him barely resembles the Brendon he knows, especially when his eyes land on Ryan and his expression twitches into some mixture of shock and displeasure.

“Well, fuck,” Not-Brendon says. He looks put out and a little angry. “You’re not where you’re supposed to be, are you?”

Ryan passes out.

***

“Come on, you little shit, wake the fuck up. I’ve got places to be today.”

Ryan thinks to himself that there are probably nicer ways to wake up, but he blinks his eyes open grudgingly anyway, focusing until he finds Not-Brendon’s face. Not-Brendon, who has left him on the floor and is just standing over him and nudging him with his shoe. Not-Brendon, whose eyes are so hard to read when his Brendon’s eyes never are.

“Where am I?” he asks, a little roughly, and doesn’t make a move to get up.

“My apartment, Ross. Now get up, seriously. I’m not kicking you out because I can’t explain this shit to the general public, but you can’t lay on my floor all day. Seriously.” He nudges Ryan’s side again with a shoe way more expensive than anything his Brendon wears, and Ryan does as he’s told, pulling himself upright and shuffling away from Not-Brendon, still sat on the ground. He looks up at him with a lost expression. He usually likes to pretend he’s in control of every situation, but this… this is not every situation.

Not-Brendon glares down at him for a minute before sighing heavily and kneeling down. “Look, dude. I can guess shit’s not going your way right now. I get that. But I have somewhere to be and you really can’t leave. So what I want to know is, are you going to trash my apartment?”

“This is your place?” he squeaks, and hates how high and thin his voice sounds.

Not-Brendon rolls his eyes. “I don’t remember you being this stupid at nineteen. Seriously Ross, yea or nae on the apartment trashing.”

“What?” he asks, gaping, and Not-Brendon huffs a little. “What is going on? I’m so confused, and you’re – look, I don’t know who you are. You look like Brendon but you’re not, and I…” He trails off, throat tight, working himself into a proper panic, and finally Not-Brendon’s expression softens.

“Ross,” Not-Brendon sighs. “Look. It’s 2016. You’ve time traveled. It’s weird, but I remember this happening and you’ll get back to your time.”

“Not possible,” he says shortly, glaring at Not-Brendon, but he’s still flushed and breathing too quickly to be taken too seriously. “Fuck you, stop lying to me. What’s going on?”

“It’s 2016,” Not-Brendon says again, and Ryan’s breath is too hard to catch. “I _promise_ it’ll be okay, alright? It’s probably confusing right now, but it’ll be fine. You made it back to 2006 in one piece, okay? Like, to 2006 me, you literally blipped out of existence for two minutes and then came back. There’s another you somewhere in LA right now, twenty-nine years old and perfectly fine. So breathe.” Ryan tries, but it’s hard, especially with a man claiming to be his Brendon kneeling in front of him that still looks at him with barely-disguised dislike.

“That’s literally not possible,” he says, but the reassurances did something, because when Brendon continues to look at him, unimpressed and vaguely annoyed, he does calm down a little.

“It’s not a new thing for our friend group,” Brendon tells him, shrugging. “Pete’s done shit like this twice. Patrick thinks he’s crazy whenever he talks about it, but I remembered this happening so I always took him pretty seriously.” He pauses. “Speaking of, I still have that meeting with him. He’ll forgive me for being late when I explain that nineteen year old you popped into my living room unannounced, but I still need to _go_. We can chat about this when I get back, or whatever, but first, you have to _promise not to trash my apartment_.”

“When have I ever been the apartment-trasher?” Ryan asks incredulously, insulted, and isn’t he supposed to be the injured party here? Besides, Brendon is the wild one with the parties, still high on newly realized freedom. Ryan's always been the more demure of the two of them.

But Brendon just glares at him, unexpected and silencing, and Ryan’s tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth. “You’d be fucking surprised,” he says coldly, and gets up. “Do whatever until I get back, but stay off my computer and for the love of fucking god, don’t watch the fucking news. I know how this time travel shit works, you can’t go back and try to change things. It’ll just fuck things up more. The music room is down the hall – play guitar or something. I’ll only be an hour or two.”

Then he storms from the room and out what Ryan assumes is the front door, leaving him alone and dumbfounded.

***

“Why do you keep looking at me like that?”

Brendon had kicked him out of the music room when he’d gotten home; Ryan was banished to the couch he’s now sitting on, knees brought up against his chest and his arms holding them close. He’s as small as he can make himself, and Brendon brings him a cup of tea but ignores his question.

“Look, I don’t know how to deal with this situation,” Brendon tells him, his phone in hand. “So I’m calling you. Other you.”

He doesn’t give Ryan time to argue or protest; he just presses a button on the weird looking phone – seriously, why doesn’t it have any fucking buttons?

It rings for what feels like whatever, but finally, Other Ryan picks up. Ryan hears the vague sound of his own voice, deeper and slower, on the other end. “Yeah, May-fucking-third,” Brendon says, like that’s a valid greeting. “Look, I don’t know what to do with him. Can’t I send him over to you? He’s, you know. You.”

There’s a response, and then Brendon makes an angry sound. “Oh, what the fuck. Look, Ross, it’s not my job to deal with you anymore.” A pause. “Oh, _fuck_ you. This isn’t about that. I’m just saying he’s not my responsibility. He’s mini-you, so you should fucking deal with him!”

Ryan has a pit of something sick and uncomfortable in his stomach. Brendon has _never_ talked to him like that. He’d known – he’d had an inkling, from the dark looks and cold tone, but this is proof that something has severed his bond with Brendon. If he’s really in his own future right now, then in ten years, he and Brendon won’t be friends. Something occurs to him, and he feels physically sick at the thought. What the fuck happened to his band? If it’s not Brendon’s job to deal with him, then –

“Disrupt the space time _whatever,_ Ross, seriously, this is bullshit.” Brendon makes another angry sound, his expression furious. “Talk to yourself asshole, maybe it’ll make more sense to him.”

He stalks over and thrusts the phone at Ryan. He makes a face at it – it seriously has one button, and then a massive screen, how does that even make sense? – but takes it, holding it up to his ear. “Hello?” he says tentatively.

There’s a heavy sigh on the other end. “What’s up,” the Other Ryan says tersely, and yeah, that’s definitely his voice. “Look, fucking Brendon – he doesn’t want to listen to me, but he doesn’t hate you yet, so maybe you can make him see reason. I remember this happening. I remember this fucking conversation; he doesn’t. In my memories, when I… fuck, you – whatever. When _we_ did this, we stayed with Brendon. So you have to stay with him, like I did, to make sure everything stays the same.”

He says it all quickly, like he doesn’t want to give Ryan the chance to argue. Brendon is still glaring at him – or at the phone. It’s hard to tell. He’s probably glaring at both of them.

Ryan opens his mouth and works his jaw for a minute or so, because it’s tight from clenching his teeth. When he finally speaks, he hates how vulnerable his voice is. “Why does it have to stay the same? I don’t… fuck, if this is my future, so far all I’ve got is a bunch of shit I don’t want to _ever_ be my life. Why can’t I change things?”

Brendon, confusingly, looks away, jaw tight. Ryan suddenly misses the Brendon who doesn’t hate him, and it’s only been a few hours.

“You don’t have a choice,” Other Ryan tells him, and he doesn’t sound happy about it either all of a sudden. “You have to, Ryan. Me. _Fuck_. Look, it’ll be okay. Things are fine on my end. There’s a lot of shit I would change, but I’m still doing alright, so you _can’t change anything_. If you change something, _anything_ , all of this changes. The conversation we’re having now would change. Who knows what would happen? And then if this changes, you’d never go back to change things in the first place and it’d create some weird paradoxal bullshit neither of us want to try and deal with because this is _not_ Doctor Who. We don’t know how this shit works. We can’t break it, because there’s no one to fix it, okay?”

And yeah, that makes a surprising amount of unpleasant sense.

“Okay,” he whispers, still watching Brendon, who is so so different than the Brendon he knows.

“I’m going to hang up, okay? I… I can’t talk to him anymore. It’s not good for either of us. We ran into each other at a Halloween party last year and it was like every bad feeling in the world and I can’t talk to that right now.” He lets out a huff eerily similar to Brendon’s, and Ryan nods.

“Okay,” he says again when he realizes Other Ryan can’t see him.                

“Bye, Other Ryan. We’ll talk again, okay? I remember that. We’ll talk. It’ll be okay.”

“Both of you have said that,” Ryan says slowly. “But I’m really wanting to call bullshit right now.”

“I remember that, too. Bye, little me.”

“Bye,” he says, without so much as a comment on the ‘little me’ thing, and Other Ryan hangs up.

“So?” Brendon snaps at him, and Ryan sighs heavily, setting the phone down on the couch next to him. He wraps his arm back around his knees and makes it hard to breathe with how tightly he’s curled up.

Ryan doesn’t want to answer him. He does anyway. “He… I have to stay here. He’s right. If we change anything, the person he is now will change. Your future will change. And if I change anything in your past, then even this conversation will change and it’ll just be a weird, complicated paradox. We don’t know enough about how this works to change anything, because we can’t fix it if we break it.” He’s trying really hard to put this in his own words, but Other Ryan’s words _are_ his words.

Brendon glares at him for a minute, but then he deflates and sags against the chair he’s thrown himself into. “Well. That’s fucking stupid.” But he doesn’t argue.

***

Brendon sets up an inflatable air mattress for him in his spare bedroom. “I haven’t gotten around to buying a bed for it yet,” Brendon tells him. He also mentions he’s lived here for two and a half years, but Ryan doesn’t say anything. If it were his Brendon, he’d make a crack about him being lazy or forgetful. Not this Brendon.

It’s hard, wanting to be close to his friend. Wanting comfort and easy conversation and, if he’s honest with himself, all the things he could never have with his Brendon, either. This Brendon is so similar in small ways – the little shimmy he does when he gets antsy about something he’s planning, or the way he pops the tab on a pop can. He’s also fucking gorgeous, which is impossible for Ryan to deal with.

He’s gorgeous in different ways, though, from his Brendon. This Brendon is toned and slim, where his Brendon is soft in places, barely starting to fill out with muscle. This Brendon’s hair is perfectly coiffed, whereas his Brendon can barely manage to do his hair on a good day. His Brendon is mesmerizing to Ryan because of his warmth and easy affection, because of the way he looks at Ryan like he’s someone important.

This Brendon looks at Ryan like he’s torn between hating him and feeling sorry for him. It puts a pit in his stomach, but he’s slowly getting used to it, even if he’s unfamiliar with a Brendon that’s as bitingly sarcastic as he is, who puts up walls between himself and the rest of the world instead of letting them in. His Brendon is the type of person whose first response is friendliness and hugs just because. There’s something darker in this Brendon’s eyes that wasn’t there last time Ryan saw his Brendon.

He doesn’t like it much, but he still wants him, because it’s still _Brendon._ He’ll get over it. That’s what he’s told himself about his feelings for his Brendon since they first appeared. Eventually, it’ll come true.

***

Ryan wakes up the morning to Brendon’s spare room instead of his bunk, and for a second, he allows himself to close his eyes and let a wretched sound come from his throat. His eyes sting, but it’s too early to cry, and it’s _far_ too early to cry where a man who hates him could find him doing so.

God, it’s so strange to think of Brendon as a man – but this version of him undoubtedly is. He’s muscular and broad-shouldered, especially compared to the boy Ryan knows. He likes to think highly of himself, but he’s a boy, too. He can admit that. Next to this Brendon, he’s practically a child.

“Ross,” Brendon calls from outside his door, not quite friendly but not unfriendly, either. “Breakfast is done, or whatever.” He sounds remarkably sulky about having made Ryan breakfast, but that’s okay, because Ryan is hungry, now that he thinks about it.

He ventures out a couple minutes later, dressed in the sweatpants and t-shirts Brendon had left him the night before. The shirt is ridiculous, and it has the words “touch-a touch-a touch me” on it in bright orange font, but he’s wearing it. He’s not ungrateful.

He sits down when Brendon gestures almost violently toward one of the seats at the dining table, and Brendon sets his breakfast in front of him with a dirty look, like Ryan had forced him to cook or serve it to him. “Eat up, Ross. You’re like a fucking twig.”

“Am I ever _not_?” he asks, wonderingly. Will he get muscular like Brendon? Or perhaps gain a little weight, like he’d always tried to whenever someone brought up how thin he was?

But Brendon’s lips twitch, the first sign of real humor, and finally he snorts. “No,” he answers. “I mean. I think you probably do have more muscle now, but you’re still kind of a skinny bitch.”

Ryan pouts a little, and glances up half-hopefully when he hears the sound of Brendon’s laugh.

He still isn’t very open, but he _is_ laughing. It’s not the obnoxious donkey laughter Ryan is used to, but that’s okay. It’s something. He smiles back, a little shyly, and to his relief Brendon just rolls his eyes and grabs his own plate.

“So,” Brendon says, saving Ryan the trouble of thinking up something to talk about. “Pete’s coming over today, yeah? I mentioned you were here yesterday, and he said he wanted to talk to you about it. Since he’s like, a veteran at weird paranormal shit.”

Ryan makes a face, but deep down, he’s relieved. Pete’s always been closer to Ryan than he is to Brendon, so that’ll at least be one person on his side. “When’s he gonna get here?” Ryan asks, taking a bite of his waffles. He doesn’t know when Brendon learned to cook, and makes a mental note to ask.

Brendon shrugs. “I dunno, close to twelve, probably. He might bring the baby… I don’t know what Meagan has going on today. So just so you know. There might be a baby. I’ll probably be watching that baby.” His eyes light up a little at the thought, but Ryan’s more preoccupied with the _baby_ than the _Brendon loving babies_.

“Pete has a _kid_?” Ryan asks incredulously, and Brendon looks at him a little strangely, before sighing.

“2006, right. I forgot. Yeah, dude, Pete has a kid. You can’t say any of this shit back in the day, but he’ll probably mention it himself now, so I might as well tell you. He has two kids – Bronx, who was born in 2008, and Saint. He was born a couple years ago.” Brendon shrugs, and takes a bite of his waffle.

Ryan’s mind is fucking _boggled_. “Pete has _two_ kids? Fuck. With who?”

Brendon eyes him. “Has Pete started dating Ashley Simpson back in 2006 yet?”

Ryan rubs his face with his palm. “Damnit. I really didn’t think that was going to last.” Brendon’s mouth twitches again, but then Ryan looks up and narrows his eyes at him. “Okay, wait. Who’s Meagan, then?”

Brendon doesn’t seem bothered at all. “He and Ashley got a divorce in like, 2011. Kinda sucked, but Pete’s good now, and Meagan’s a total sweetheart, so…” He trails off.

They chat off and on while they finish their food, and then Brendon disappears into his music room. He hands Ryan a guitar before shutting the door, and Ryan sits on the couch by himself, strumming lightly.

He starts picking more than strumming, because strumming can be a bitch without a pick and Brendon didn’t hand him one. By the time he’s worked his way through _Lying_ for the eighth time, he’s just about dying of boredom.

When the front door opens, he damn near jumps out of his skin, but it’s just Pete.

“Little dude,” Pete greets him, waving his key in the air. “Didn’t mean to startle you.” He smiles, but something about it seems off. Ryan wants to ask, but before he has the chance, the music room’s door opens and Brendon steps out.

“Did I hear the – awesome, you’re here,” Brendon says happily, and comes forward to give Pete a hug. Pete’s smile widens, smooths out at the corners, and it occurs to Ryan that Pete’s smile was strained because it was aimed at _him_. And, fuck. How many of his relationships have been fucked up? What the hell happened? “No baby? Dude, fuck you,” Brendon is saying, but Ryan can’t really pay attention to his pouting when his world is imploding.

Brendon eventually makes his excuses and leaves to go get some sort of food, leaving Pete and Ryan alone together.

Pete’s different now, too. His hair is blonde and he’s not as jittery as he used to be. His eyes are brighter, and his jeans… well, they aren’t girl jeans. He’s not the scene kid he used to be. “You got old,” Ryan says impulsively, and thankfully, Pete laughs.

“Old as fuck legends of emo,” he says cheerfully, and Ryan squints at him until he laughs again and elaborates. “Something Gee Way said to me a while back. Don’t you worry about it – anyway. You’re in a bit of a situation here.”

Ryan knows things aren’t quite right, but it’s more than a little relieving to know that Pete doesn’t really seem to have changed _that_ much. “Yeah, I’m. Y’know. Obviously not from around here.”

Pete nods, bobbing his head. “That is incredibly obvious.” His grin widens. “You’re still in your emo phase.” He cackles when Ryan glares at him.

“Fuck you,” Ryan snaps, half-playfully. “Last time I saw you, you’d _invented_ the emo phase.” Pete just laughs louder.

“Look, you seem to be doing okay,” Pete says, grinning at him. “So I’m not gonna worry about your mental health too much. But the main point of what I came here to say is that you should definitely keep in mind that you can’t try to –“

“Change anything?” Ryan says dryly.

Pete just goes with it. “Yeah. Change anything. I’m not saying I’ve done this exact thing before – there have been body switching incidents, let’s just put it like that – but the general gist of things is that you can’t try and fix anything. You’ll probably fuck it up more. But like...” He bites his lip, trying to think of how to phrase it, but Ryan thinks he knows where Pete’s going with it.

“Paradoxal shit?” he offers, and Pete nods his head up and down several times.

“Yeah, exactly. Paradoxal shit.”

He sighs. “That’s what the Other Ryan said when Brendon called him.” He pauses, and looks up at Pete, realizing that this is someone he can _talk_ to. “Pete…” He struggles to figure out how to phrase it. “Can I ask you something?” he goes with, short on the actual question.

“Of course you can, little dude. Ask away.” He’s so relaxed. Ryan wishes he felt as comfortable, but he’s been so tense ever since he wound up here.

“Why the fuck does Brendon hate me?” he blurts when he can’t think of a more delicate way to phrase it. “What happened with us? Or, I guess. With everyone. Me and everyone. Because you seemed weird when you walked in, too, and I just… yesterday I was on our bus and everything was fine and Brendon was one of my best friends and then I’m here and he looks like I make him sick.”

Pete’s eyes have widened, and he bites down on his lower lip. It’s as much a nervous habit as it is a gesture of him thinking something through. “I don’t know if that’s my place, little dude. I don’t know how much I can tell you.”

“My best friend _hates_ me,” he says, stresses the words but most of all the word _hates_. And fuck, Brendon is not his only best friend – where the fuck is Spencer? He’s seen photos of him and Brendon on the walls, but Brendon hasn’t mentioned him once.

Pete slouches a little in his chair, uncomfortable. “Look, some shit went down. You and Jon left the band, everything was sort of more or less fine, and then shit went down and you stopped talking to everyone and everyone stopped talking to you and Jon got caught in the middle and did some solo stuff – I don’t know what you want me to tell you.”

Ryan thinks he can start with the fact that Jon was in the band to start with, but he knows that something isn’t right with Brent. Jon replacing him isn’t much of a surprise, especially with Brent’s attitude and his being late all the time but…

“What do you mean we left the band?” he asks, voice small, and Pete winces.

“Dude, I don’t know what to tell you,” he says again. “You and Jon left. Cited musical differences and went off to start a new band. Spencer and Bren kept doing Panic, and you guys still stayed friends, for the most part, until 2011. There was a big fight even _I_ don’t know the details of, and I’m definitely one of Brendon’s best friends, and then suddenly it was like you were on the other side of the world. I haven’t talked to you in like, four years.” He looks supremely uncomfortable, but Ryan’s more focused on the fact that he… hasn’t talked to Pete in four years? What the fuck?

He tries to think of a single reason why he’d want to leave the band, the band he and Spencer _started_. His brainchild. Or why he’d want to leave Brendon, who’s so fucking important to him. Brent’s not a big loss, but what the fuck happened that could have split him, Brendon, and Spencer?

“Are you sure you don’t know anything more than that?” he asks, desperately, but Pete doesn’t. Ryan hopes Brendon will be more forthcoming.

***

Brendon is not more forthcoming.

“Why can’t you just tell me what happened?” he snaps, after a good twenty minutes of arguing about it.

“Because I don’t want to _fucking_ talk about it,” Brendon snaps back, glaring, and Ryan actually stomps his foot when he can’t think of a good rebuttal past “you’re an asshole.” Brendon knows he’s an asshole, which he didn’t used to be, but Ryan’s slowly getting used to this biting, sharp man Brendon’s turned into.

“So you expect me to just go back and deal with knowing that one day we’re not even fucking friends?” Ryan says after a long silence. It’s still angry, but his voice is getting shakier; fuck, he’s so upset right now. “Maybe you’ve had time to forget, but where I’m from, you’re actually kind of important to me, you asshole, so forgive me if I can’t figure out where it went wrong.”

He hates the look that comes over Brendon’s face.

“You’ll figure it out,” he says, shortly. Each word is clipped, spat out. “You can wait and experience it with me; you have time. You have five fucking years before you have to deal with it, so just forget it.”

“I don’t want to forget it!” he argues. “And I don’t want to experience it at all!” The words start coming out without his being able to stop them; for someone who hates sharing his feelings, he’s been doing it so often lately. “I hate it when you look at me like I’m the scum of the earth – I hate thinking that someday my Brendon will start acting like you,” he spits venomously. “You’re bitter and jaded and you’re _such a fucking asshole_. My Brendon is a way better person than you are.”

“I’m only what you made me, Ross,” Brendon says, his voice low and dangerous. “You have no right to come in here and start criticizing _me_ when you fucking… _fuck_ , Ross, you don’t have the fucking right! And you don’t get to call me ‘your Brendon.’”

“I’m not calling you that, I’m calling him that! Because _you’re. Not. Him_.”

“He’s not yours either!” Brendon seethes, and stands. He looks like he’s going to say something else, but in the end, he doesn’t. He storms out of the living room, locking himself in his studio.

Ryan doesn’t know what else to do – Brendon had left Other Ryan’s number taped to the counter by the house phone that morning, before they’d fought, and Ryan still needs answers.

He calls the number, after entering it twice due to misdialing with his shaking fingers. It doesn’t take long for him to pick up. “… Brendon?”

“No,” Ryan says shortly. “Me. You. _Fuck_.”

“Hi, Ryan,” Other Ryan greets him wearily. “Let me guess. What did I do?”

Ryan veritably explodes. “ _Yeah, what did you do?”_ He’s half hysteric. “What the _fuck_ did you do? Why does he hate us so much? What do I do that’s so awful that all of my friends hate me?”

“You have friends –“

“When’s the last time you talked to Spencer?” he demands, and can barely admit to himself that he’s actually fucking crying. His vision is blurry. It’s just a hunch he has, that something went wrong with him and Spencer, too, but damn it if he’s not going to make his point. He doesn’t think he’s got this misunderstood.

There’s a long silence on the other end. “Ryan. Calm down.”

He breaks, and makes an ugly sound into the phone that’s mostly him trying _not_ to let a sob rip its way out of his throat. “He’s my best friend,” he says, and he sounds pitiful, but he can’t stop. “Spencer, he’s my best friend. And Brendon is _so_ much more to me, and whatever you did, you fucked it all up. You left our _band_ , why would you do that? Why would you leave?”

“I didn’t –“ Ryan makes a frustrated sound. “It didn’t just happen like that. There were other factors. And I mean, me and Spencer… it’s not just my fault, you know! And we have friends. Dan is our friend. And Ryland is our friend. We have _friends_.”

“Who the fuck is Dan?” he says. Well, it’s more of a wail, and there’s a part of him chastising him for the melodramatics, but there’s a bigger part that thinks it’s necessary. “Dan isn’t fucking Spencer! He’s not Brendon, or Jon, or Bill, or Pete! What happened to all my _friends_ , you fucking dick?” The mention of Ryland is reassuring, but it doesn’t fix everything else.

He stops yelling, because he can’t breathe well enough to keep going. His limbs are all trembling, and the tears he’d been trying to hold back are running down his face. He’s an ugly crier, that absent voice in his head reminds him, but he’s suddenly sat on the floor, one hand pressed into his eye in a useless attempt to stop the tears, just shaking. He can’t stop.

“A lot of shit happened,” Ryan says quietly from the other end, but he just coughs, wet and thick in his throat.

There’s the sound of footsteps behind him, and a cough. He curls in tighter, trying to stop the sounds he’s making, but he can’t stop crying. He thinks, distantly, that the stress and time-travel has finally gotten to him.

“Fuck, dude,” Brendon sighs from behind him, and he hangs up the phone so he can wrap his arms around himself and make himself small. There’s a moment of silence, and then Brendon’s kneeling down, settling behind him. Strong arms wrap around him, and when Brendon tugs him around, he goes willingly, crying into his neck.

“I didn’t mean it,” he sobs. “Whatever I did, I didn’t mean it.”

Brendon is so tense, but he loosens up a little at that, holding Ryan close. Ryan hasn’t had a blow up of these proportions _ever_ , not as long as he’s known Brendon. He thinks Brendon knows that, because he just gets an exasperated sigh that sounds forced, and gentle rocking.

“You’ve got to chill out,” Brendon says quietly. “What’s done is done, but you can’t – dude, you’re seriously doing fine. It’s not the end of the world.”

“It was supposed to be the three of us forever,” Ryan says tightly, and Brendon curves in a little, holds Ryan a little tighter.

“I thought so, too. But it doesn’t always work out.” Brendon doesn’t sound angry anymore. “We just… we drifted, Ry. There’s so much shit you kept to yourself, and then we fought over _everything_. We could never compromise, and then in 2010 we just kept drifting and you could never figure out what you wanted, and I didn’t know how to give you space without being an ass. Everything went downhill so fast, Ry.” Ryan winds his arms around Brendon’s neck, and it’s strange, that he’s the smaller one, the one who needs comforting when Brendon usually fits into his arms so well.

It also doesn’t feel wrong. Maybe it’s because he’s still shaking, face still wet, hands sweaty and trembling, but it feels safer here than anywhere else.

“I never wanted to hurt you,” he says. “I would never want to hurt you.”

“Sometimes you did,” Brendon tells him, matter-of-fact. “And sometimes I wanted to hurt you, too. Things were so bad.” But he’s still not _angry_ , not like before. He’s called him “Ry” twice. It’s the most familiar he’s been with Brendon since he got here.

In the end, Brendon doesn’t give him any more specifics. He doesn’t know what happened in 2011 that fucked everyone up and cut his last ties with his Panic! friends. But Brendon puts in a movie, and he lets Ryan cuddle into his side that night, and it almost feels like 2006. They might as well be on the bus, in between venues.

***

Brendon makes omelets the next day, exactly how Ryan likes them, with little diced tomatoes and cheese. He’s never told Brendon how he likes his omelets, but he figures he will. Someday. God knows when.

Breakfast is quiet, but amicable, and Brendon tells him that he’s cancelled his plans for the day. “Time to veg,” he announces after breakfast, and he puts on some show called _Bob’s Burgers_ and lets it play while he scrolls through his phone and lets Ryan doodle in a notebook. He hasn’t gone back to calling Ryan “Ross.”

Ryan falls asleep around noon, and when he wakes up, it’s on Brendon’s shoulder. He’s on Twitter, which Brendon had explained to him earlier that day. He still doesn’t understand why Livejournal isn’t still a thing, or why MySpace isn’t cool anymore. 2016 is confusing, but he’s fine for right now. He doesn’t have to live it. Not yet.

“When I go back, am I really not allowed to fix things?” he asks around dinner.

“You’re really not,” Brendon tells him, and for the first time, he doesn’t sound angry about it. Just tired. Just sad.

***

“I’m in love with you.”

He doesn’t think he’ll have ever said it, but he wants Brendon to know. It’s not his Brendon, but he still wants to say it.

Brendon doesn’t look very shocked, he thinks. It makes sense when Brendon says, “Yeah, I know. Always waited for you to make a move, but you never did.” He pauses, looking away from his phone to meet Ryan’s eyes. “You never will.”

A little bit off the distances is back in Brendon’s eyes, but Ryan just nods, wanting to curl up again. “I want to.”

Brendon shrugs. “We get pretty close. I mean, in your time. You will. It’ll be like having it without talking about it. And then things’ll blow up.”

“You mean I pussyfoot around it until we fuck up our own chances,” he says bitterly, and it’s kind of strange that he’s not embarrassed or shy about talking about it. If it were his Brendon, he’d be blushing and stammering, all faux cool gone.

“Make our own bed and all that,” Brendon shrugs. Ryan notices he never says he doesn’t have feelings for Ryan, too.

***

Spencer, he learns, is getting married.

When he learns this, he gives Brendon a long, long look, and Brendon looks back. There’s a hint of something on his face, like pity, that tells Ryan all he needs to know.

“We were going to be each other’s best men,” he says, almost inaudibly. Brendon nods.

“I know,” he acknowledges. “I’m Spencer’s.”

“I’m not even invited, am I?”

Brendon learned a couple days ago not to sugar-coat shit. He’s also learned that sometimes this shit is best delivered with a hug, and Brendon has been surprisingly good at giving those out lately. He wraps an arm around Ryan’s shoulders, leaning his head onto Ryan’s left. “Not as far as I know. Sorry.”

He wants to cry again. He doesn’t. “It’s okay.” It’s not.  “Does he know I’m here?”

“No. We never told him, back in 2006. Seems weird to bring it up now.” Ryan doesn’t really get it, but he also doesn’t think he needs to see Spencer treating him the way Brendon had when he’d first turned up. God, he’s going to miss Spencer.

***

He walks out one morning in the clothes he’d shown up in. Brendon looks up from where he’s shaking out cereal, having given up on making breakfast every morning.

“Today’s the day, huh?” he asks, and Ryan shrugs, sitting down at the kitchen table.

“I feel weird,” he says. “I think so.” It’s like his bones are jittering, and he’s kind of… out of place. He feels it, more than usual. He thinks it’s time to go back. He’s… he’s really glad. Even if this is eventually going to be his life, it’s not yet. He still has time.

Five years, he thinks, glancing over at Brendon. Five years before this is taken from him.

“I’m glad you managed… I’m glad you don’t still hate me. Or. _This_ me,” he says while Brendon’s eating. He won’t touch his. He’s not hungry.

Brendon gives him a small, kind of lopsided smile. “Having you here made me think it might be time to give up on old grudges.”

“I probably miss you,” he says, thoughtfully. Like he hasn’t been planning to point this out for days. Brendon probably sees right through him. This Brendon has never looked at him like he’s a mystery, like he’s cool and unflappable, like Brendon looks at him back home. This Brendon has learned every part of him, sees through him so well.

“Ryan,” he sighs, and Ryan holds his hands up defensively.

“I’m just saying,” he says, and he finally takes a bite of his cereal to make his point. He’s not gonna push it. He just wanted to say. “I’m just saying,” he repeats. “It might be cool if you get Spencer to invite me to the wedding.”

Brendon cracks a little bit of a grin. “I might be able to work something out.” Ryan had thought he might, and it makes him feel a little better, knowing that he might still get to be there when Spencer marries a woman Ryan has never, and probably will not until the wedding itself, met.

Ryan knows, a couple hours later, that it’s time. It had been so sudden when it had happened the first time, when it had brought him here, but this is slow. Whatever it is, it’s giving him a warning.

He turns to Brendon. “I never wanted all this,” he says again, because he thinks it’s important to let Brendon know it. The look on Brendon’s face tells him he does know. That’s comforting, too.

Then, slowly, so Brendon knows it’s coming, he leans in and kisses him gently on the mouth. “I just… I needed – just once. For the future. For now,” he whispers against Brendon’s lips. He doesn’t seem too surprised.

“I get it,” Brendon sighs back, and then brings his hand up to cup the junction between Ryan’s neck and jaw. He kisses Ryan again, still gentle. One to grow on, Ryan thinks, and a week ago he would have been hyperventilating. The hysteria is gone now. He’s just tired. He misses Brendon already, and he still _has_ him. He’ll have him for five more years.

“Bye, Brendon,” he says, when he feels like something’s tugging on him.

It’s kind of poetic that he doesn’t get to hear Brendon say goodbye back.

***

He wraps his arms around Brendon the minute he’s back in 2006, barely gone two minutes, like the other Brendon had said.

“I missed you,” he says, and it’s a testament to how worn he is that he doesn’t start shaking again, or crying of relief. Then, he tells Brendon everything.

Well, not everything. Just where he’d been. He doesn’t give him any details, but Brendon can see that something’s wrong. He’s doting and caring and his eyes are so warm, that level of familiarity and caring that the other Brendon hadn’t managed to reach, even after they’d come to a truce and become friendly.

 _I love you_ , he thinks fiercely, knowing it will do no good.

“In ten years,” he says later, in the dark of Brendon’s bunk. Brendon is the big spoon, and he’s trying not to grip at the arm around his waist too tightly, scared of letting go and feeling like he’ll float away again. “In ten years, I’ll just show up in your apartment one day. Let me in, okay? You have to let me in.” He’s almost asleep, and doesn’t elaborate that he doesn’t mean into the apartment. _Let me in. Let me back in, Brendon_.

“Okay,” Brendon whispers against his neck. It’s enough to know that he keeps his promise.

***

Ryan Ross is twenty nine years old, and he lives in a small house in LA. It’s not that far from where Brendon lives, but he’s only bumped into him the once, at the Halloween party last year. It’s strange, he thinks, that they’ve managed to coexist in the same city and pretend that the other person is just a shade, like they’re not even there.

Ryan Ross is twenty nine years old, not nineteen. When he opens the door, his face has lines that it didn’t, the last time Brendon saw him (or a version of him). His eyes are still dark and open, like nineteen year old Ryan’s but unlike the Ryan Ross he'd seen back in October. He’s got stubble and more muscle that Brendon had realized. His first thought is that he lied to the other Ryan, the young Ryan. Not so much a twig anymore. Skinny fuck, Brendon thinks, but not a twig. His hair is curling.

Brendon smiles at him a little hesitantly. He doesn’t know this Ryan. He knew nineteen year old Ryan, but this is practically a whole different person. “Hi,” he says anyway, and Ryan’s biting his lip, like he’d been expecting this but hadn’t figured out how to deal with it before it’d happened. “Can I come in?”

Ryan breathes out, shakily, and then smiles at him with relief and a little bit of wonder in his eyes. Brendon knows now that he’d been waiting all this time. “I was hoping you’d come,” he says quickly, like it’s a breath he’s been holding too long. Then he opens the door, and lets Brendon inside. “Can we fix this now?” he adds, still too quick. It’s a nervous question, Brendon acknowledges as he watches Ryan close the door behind him. There’s a small dog trotting curiously over to them.

Brendon doesn’t bother to answer him; he steels his nerves, and pulls Ryan in for a hug. It’s awkward, but he holds on stubbornly anyway. This Ryan isn’t small and frail; he isn’t the skinny boy in a rose patterned vest and makeup anymore. Brendon still feels like this is familiar, something he's been missing. 

“Let’s talk, Ryan,” he says when Ryan gets antsy in his arms.

They both relax.

“Okay,” he says. “Let’s talk.”  

***

Ryan Ross is twenty nine years old when, across a city, a nineteen year old version of himself pops into existence. He knows when the other Ryan gets the first hug any Ryan has gotten from Brendon Urie in five years. He knows when his best friend unintentionally breaks his heart. He knows when he has his first kiss with Brendon, the kiss that carries him well into his late twenties.

He doesn’t know when his next kiss with Brendon will be. He doesn’t know that it’ll ever happen. However,  _he_ has had his first hug from Brendon Urie in five years, and he has faith.


End file.
